The Wuasikamas Movement of the Inga People in Aponte for Land Rights, Governance and Conservation

Main purpose
Biodiversity conservation / restoration,
Land restoration for increased soil fertility / reversal of land degradation,
Reduced environmental degradation from sustainable resource use,
Land tenure equality and security,
Reduced illegal resource exploitation / poaching,
Demobilization, disarmament and reintegration of combatants, Strengthening indigenous culture

Other expected benefits
Food security,
Provision / protection / diversification of employment and livelihoods / poverty reduction

Conflict context
80% of the planet’s current biodiversity survives on the 30% of the Earth that is protected by indigenous peoples. Colonisation, war and drug trafficking are the most profitable and current economies in South America. Colombia has become one of the most dangerous territories for communities and defenders of human rights and the rights of nature, while it is the second most biodiverse country in the world and possesses 50% of the world’s páramos, with 115 indigenous peoples, 64 of whom are at risk of physical and cultural extinction due to the armed conflict. Wuasikamas addresses aspects of the conflict related to colonisation, deforestation, drug trafficking, war and extractivism.

In the 1990s, the indigenous Inga people of Aponte, a community of some 3,650 people at the time, were held hostage in their own territory for 12 years by guerrilla forces, paramilitaries and drug traffickers who filled their land of just 4,000 hectares with some 2,500 hectares of coca plantations. 500 hectares of illicit poppy plantations and became the epicentre of 10% of national production according to the UNODC; massacres, selective assassinations and displacements became the norm in a territory located some 900 kilometres by road from the capital city Bogotá. With more than 100 Inga people killed and thousands of hectares of their ancestral territory totally devastated by deforestation, in 2003 they turned to their traditional knowledge and master plant wisdom to say no more!

Peace and security contributions
Based on their ancestral principles of not stealing, not lying, not being lazy in order to live in harmony with the beings of nature, the Indigenous People of Aponte returned to their principle of being Wuasikamas, an expression in the Inga language that means ‘guardians of the territory’. By dint of arguments based on their mother tongue and inspired by their own history, they focused their internal dialogues in connection with grandfathers and grandmothers of the Siona, Cofán and Inga peoples to free themselves from the clutches of drug trafficking and armed groups, and to undertake an unprecedented process of territorial reorganisation and strengthening of cultural identity, which 20 years later, are sustained by economies based on nature. Community management achieved the titling of 22,000 hectares of land in favour of the Inga de Aponte indigenous community, of which 17,500 hectares are sacred area exclusively for the beings of nature and 4,500 hectares are for community survival, violent deaths and plantations of crops for illicit use were reduced to zero and governance was strengthened with the active participation of women, youth and elders, with indigenous education being the pillar that sustains the social, economic, environmental and spiritual advances in the present and future of the process.

This solution promotes social cohesion because all parts of the community come together to first discuss the challenges they face and their causes. They realise that they all have the same challenges creating unity, a shared perception of the problems. At this point they can be asked to devise solutions and what is required to ensure that the solutions work. MEP conducted surveys to understand local perceptions of well-being and multi-dimensional security. Replies included many elements but finding food, water and fuel for their families and livestock were top priority. All of these depend on healthy, non-degraded and productive ecosystems. The empowerment of being able to create and enforce environmental governance systems was highly valued as an element of security and social cohesion.

Reported elements of good practices

• Through the establishment of judiciary, educational, and health services, the Inga people have created a solid institutional framework that enables them to exercise sovereignty over their territory.
• Natural regeneration and reforestation through organic production methods.
• In accordance with indigenous values, collective feeling of community and autonomy.

Reported challenges

There are no reported challenges.